For example, it must know by now that at 1 o’clock each weekday afternoon, I either turn it to silent or check to make sure it is so. This is because I have class and a ringing device costs you $5. Couldn’t it watch my pattern for a week or two and then project that I will do today what I’ve done every Tuesday beforehand?

Or how about the feature Apple offers where you can go through .me and find your phone if it is lost. Why do YOU have to go do that? Doesn’t your phone have a pretty good idea when it’s lost? Let’s say I have the phone in my pocket every day I go out the door. Every day. Since forever. Might the fact that tomorrow, the phone is still sitting where it was left, unmoved for 36 hours straight give it the sense to know something is up? Might it not “call” my designated contact, or email someone to say “hey, where are you? Do you know where I am?”

How about security? We put so much into these phones, with the banking apps, passwords, etc. Aren’t we worried if someone gets there hands on our phone? Sure, but what can we do about it? Well, the phone should be pretty good about identifying its owner, no? We use it every day, and though we might not see it, we have some very subtle patterns of usage and behavior that can’t be duplicated that easily. Can’t the phone identify and track this, such that when someone else tries to use the phone, using it in an entirely different way, that it thinks that something might be amiss and emails for confirmation: “Hey Matte, am I still in your pocket? Should I really be letting you into your online bank account or let you post to Wordpress?”

It might be weird to wake up one day to HAL in our pockets, but I think a device we encourage to be self-aware will do us less harm than a really smart device we continually expect to play dumb.

Well, I’m thinking why couldn’t this be used elsewhere?

If you’ve used an iPhone you probably have run into Shazam or the like – applications that listen to a song playing and tells you what it is. But what if you can’t get to the app (you’re driving) or you never thought to use it. It’s later that day (or the next) and you are humming a song. What was it? Well pull up the web app because your iPhone was listening and sampling music in the background all day and you can see on a timeline all of the songs it identified. No, it’s not recording your conversations, just listening or music.

What a better way to recall the song! Or how about just going back to see what was the soundtrack of your day? Or to REALLY know what song was playing the first time you kissed her? No reason it can’t save a database of songs going back forever.

And talk about a Nielsen moment! The data that could be mined…

I originally thought this could be a separate device, similar to the radio bookmark thrown in with donations on fund drives, but it’s so perfect for Apple an the iPhone. Everything is already there.

Rock on!

Happens every day in some place in the world, right?

But we’ve got the internet!

So, just as my Google Calendar will send me a text message before my dentist appointment, why can’t I get the weather messaged to me?

Well, that’s not too revolutionary. But what about I only get bothered by the weather when it’s going to bother me? Give me a chance to decide when I want to be notified – let me choose to get an email when there’s a 50% chance of rain, or if it’s going to be a high below 40 F? That way, I can forget about looking, worrying, etc. Just let me know and I’ll plan accordingly.

Okay, I just received an SMS that my toast is done.